Permira buys brokerage platform Engel & Völkers

Greg Gille
10 August 2021

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Permira has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Engel & Völkers, an international property brokerage platform headquartered in Hamburg.

The Völkers family and part of the management team will retain around 40% of the shares in the company. Founder Christian Völkers will become chair of the supervisory board.

Closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected in the fourth quarter.

Permira said it intends to drive the digitalisation of the business model and support further internationalisation. The digitalisation portion will notably focus on furthering the technology angle of internal processes spanning marketing, lead acquisition and agent recruiting, the GP said.

Permira's current flagship, Permira VII, held a final close in October 2019, hitting its EUR 11bn hard-cap. The vehicle deploys equity tickets of EUR 250m-1bn in businesses with enterprise values in the EUR 500m-3bn range. The fund targets the consumer, services, healthcare and technology sectors. Permira also is gearing up for the launch of its new buyout fund, as reported.

The firm has had a very busy 2021 so far on the buy-side, inking seven deals (including Engel & Völkers), according to Unquote Data. Among these were a EUR 1.9bn investment in listed online classifieds platform Adevinta to secure a 10% stake, as well as the purchase of a 36% stake in France-based digital real estate platform New Immo Group.

On the exit side, Permira listed footwear business Dr Martens in London with a valuation of GBP 3.7bn (while retaining a 42.9% stake) and sold pet care retail chain Arcaplanet to Cinven in a EUR 1bn-plus deal.

Company
Founded in Hamburg in 1977, Engel & Völkers specialises in premium property brokerage. Its platform counts 11,500 real estate agents across 900 locations in more than 30 countries, operating independently but drawing on the platform's listings base, technology, service offering and trademark.

The company said it expects commission revenues to exceed EUR 1bn by the end of 2021. According to a 2020 Handelsblatt report, Engel & Völkers posted revenues of EUR 800m in 2019.

People
Permira – Jörg Rockenhäuser (managing partner).